"Every day is Veterans Day" rings as true as the motto, "Once a Marine, always a Marine."

I happen to talk to retired Marine Maj. Gen. Hal Vincent. He mentions his 85th birthday is coming up and he's planning a sky dive.

Yes, the general's jumping out of a plane. Did I mention he uses a walker?

Still, it's a fitting celebration for a man who flew 242 combat missions in Vietnam, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze star, and risked his life as a test pilot during the heyday of the Right Stuff.

We agree to jump together – me right behind. But the sky dive company can't get its act together. Instead, we get together for a down to earth lunch. I pull out a pen and pad. Vincent asks that I ditch the paper and ink. We're just chatting.

The San Juan Capistrano resident explains he doesn't want a column about him when there are many veterans far more deserving. He finally agrees to talk if the column's only 10 percent about him.

So let's agree that this column isn't about this veteran. Rather it's about all veterans because Vincent – who was 36 years in uniform – embodies the spirit of those who serve.

That includes the never-give-up attitude that helped Vincent survive three crashes.

• • •

Vincent grew up in a place called Otsego, a small town outside of a large town in western Michigan.

I've lived and worked near Otsego and know it to be a community where men disappear into forests to hunt deer. But with a pilot father, Vincent was more drawn to the sky. By age 17, Vincent was determined to fly anything and everything.

As soon as he was old enough, Vincent enlisted in the Navy's aviation program. He was sent to nearby Western Michigan University and then the U.S. Naval Academy. By 1953, he was stationed at El Toro Marine Base and was living his dream.

Flying jets.

He recalls that in those days El Toro Road made its way to the beach by threading through bean fields and orange groves. But Vincent had little time for such excursions. He and his new wife, Ginny, were busy raising two baby boys. (They later added a daughter.) And, of course, there was Vincent's other love, flying.

Understand that Ginny knew what she was getting into when she married the 6-foot-1 Marine. Ginny's father, Marine Walter Bayler, was the last man off Wake Island during World War II. Ginny was a 9-year-old living on base in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

It was during those early years when Vincent nearly died. The first time.

He was flying an F6F Hellcat over the Gulf of Mexico when the engine quit. He'd been taught that if the wind is high, land into the wind; if the waves are big, land along the crest of the waves. But as Vincent plunged toward the ocean, sea and sky blended into the same color.

The plane tore into the water and a 20-foot ball of water tore into the plane. With the plane sinking fast, Vincent struggled to shove the cockpit toward the tail. Drowning, he fought to free himself from the Hellcat.

He grabbed a cord attached to an inflatable life raft and, lungs bursting, swam toward the surface. Exhausted, he managed to climb into the raft and break green dye canisters so he could be traced.

But Vincent didn't realize the canisters were still inside the flooded raft. He was swimming in green. He sloshed out enough dye to be found.

For a while, he was one very green Marine.

• • •

After his first stint at El Toro – there would be a total of four – Vincent headed to Korea where he caught the end of the war. There, he busied himself flying every type of plane he could get his hands on.

When he returned, the brass realized they had a budding test pilot. Vincent was sent to Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Md., where he trained with then-future astronauts Al Shepard, Scott Carpenter and John Glenn.

Vincent recalls a dinner with Glenn and their wives. Glenn and Vincent discussed their futures and Glenn, a future senator, lamented, "You have all this education. I don't have much education."

Laughing, Vincent says, "You could say it worked out for him."

Later, Vincent met Bob Hoover, one of the most famous test pilots of the era. Over dinner and photos of planes, Hoover admitted he'd had 20 crashes, including one where he clipped off the wings flying between two trees.

Hoover looked at his young protégé and advised, "You don't shut your eyes and hope it goes away. You fly that plane right down to the last second."

The conversation impressed Vincent. Sitting in his study plastered with plane photos, he says, "I was always very confident in an emergency that I could handle it."

Flying from El Toro to Dallas, the jet engine on his F8U Crusader failed four times. But Vincent could only restart the engine three times.

Without power, he guided the plane from 30,000 feet to 4,000 feet and managed to glide parallel to a runway in El Centro. Then he bailed, confident the plane would hurt no one.

• • •

From 1960 to 1962, Vincent was a test pilot at China Lake, a vast stretch of sand at the southern end of the Sierras.

"For five years as a test pilot," he says, "I had everything happen to me."

He was the first Marine to fly Mach 2, shot experimental missiles, tested "zoom climbs" to 70,000 feet.